


Wingless

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Love Like Yours 2020 [8]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Julian Devorak Route - Reversed Ending, but with a demon!apprentice instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24353008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: The Devil got his way, but Reyja took the protection bullet instead of Julian. Now she's trapped, twisted into a demonic cross of a moth and her old self.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Character(s)
Series: Love Like Yours 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753846
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Wingless

**Author's Note:**

> For the Love Like Yours prompt "Freestyle"  
> (as in do whatever you want)

It’s dark. And it’s hot. My throat hurts more with every exhale. There are others, though I’ve never seen them. Only their laughter comes to me on gusts of sweltering wind, and the prickle of their cruel eyes follows me wherever I go.

At least, it would if I went anywhere.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. You forget, you know, if there’s nothing to mark the passage of time. I think there was something else before this, but I might be wrong. I usually am. That’s what got me here in the first place.

In the beginning, I was different. My prison may have been too; it’s been dark and hot for so long I can’t remember anything else. But on the edge of my mind sometimes I see joy and music and the welcome embrace of sleep. None of that has meaning to me now, beyond the painful and persistent ache in my chest to remind me that I no longer merit it.

There is no such thing as comfort where I am. No privacy, no passion, no pleasure. At once, I am bored and overwhelmed by it. The ever-watchful others never leave. The ever-present heat never wavers. I sweat and I gasp but I don’t get to lose consciousness to escape it. Whatever I am now must not have that failsafe.

I used to be smaller, I think. And wingless. And unable to sense the vibrations in the air of moving things I cannot see. I used to be happy. I used to be cuddled and soothed. Love, I think it was called.

Is it better to be tormented by the memory of what you lost or to never have anything to lose at all?

Sometimes, it all comes back. I both dread and revel in those moments, because then I know why I hurt. But the final glimpse I got of him, of Julian, before the Devil took me away was tear-stained, painful. Desperately sad. Even so, it was all I had. His face, split four ways between shock and dismay and fury and love, sustained me for a while, before the Devil realized it had given me hope and seared it from my mind. He offered it back, sometimes, one crumb, one droplet at a time. And I fell for it, and fell for it, and fell for it.

Over and over again, into oblivion.

I don’t think I have it in me to hope anymore. Julian must hate me for the love I stole from him. I am at last the monster I deserve to be: massive, pale, voiceless and fragile and terribly alone. Ever straining for the light just to be paralyzed by its spark.

The Devil won’t return again. He’s had his fun with me. And there is no one else: every bridge I crossed, I burned. Those were his parting words. I will be here forever, deathless and dead, forgotten like a spoiled child’s toy. The others will keep watching me. Sweat will continue to drip off the ends of my antennae and smudge my wings to ruin. I cannot speak. I cannot dream. I cannot cry.

I cannot remember the softness of his lips as we kissed in a swirl of silver moonlight, the first and last time I was ever wanted.

I’m sorry.


End file.
